Ramirez on executive leadership in the White House

posted at 10:01 am on May 25, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

In this blizzard of scandals, one thread connects all of them — the AP/Rosen scandal, political corruption at the IRS, and Benghazi, at least on the changes made to the talking points. Barack Obama knew nothing of all them, at least according to the White House’s own defenses. He had no idea what was happening in his own Treasury, State, and Justice Departments until the media notified him in the morning paper. Even his White House counsel gets better informed than the President in this administration, according to Jay Carney, which is more than a little disturbing.

Forbes’ Carl Schramm follows up with an essay on the lack of executive skills displayed by the President who had, er, no executive experience at all prior to winning the job:

Every CEO is a politician. Not every politician is a CEO. The current set of messes that President Obama faces makes the point. They are as much management failures as they are political/legal nightmares. There is a price for having no market-facing executive experience. Indeed, Mr. Obama’s first cabinet had almost no private sector management experience.

Most of our better presidents have had business or military leadership experience. This is of tremendous value when running the world’s largest organization. Those who haven’t, like Bill Clinton, himself tested by failure as a politician and familiar with the executive role governor’s play, knew that private sector executives have a different view of what successful management is and kept a few close at hand.

Be sure to read it all, as Schramm makes a number of good observations about how CEOs develop the skills necessary for leadership of large organizations through years of experience dealing with markets. Obama missed all of those lessons, a point that was not left unmade by many of us in the 2007-8 election cycle. Assuming that Obama could suddenly be imbued with all of that experience and wisdom, what would he do now in this crisis? Schramm speculates that a real executive would start firing people wholesale:

The CEO’s script: “I can’t believe federal servants didn’t protect diplomats, spied on the press, and singled out conservative groups using the tax code. It seems the apparatus of Washington forgets who has the ultimate authority – not aides, deputies, and not bureau chiefs. It’s mine; I’m President.”

Then, “I mean to run government in a way that inspires trust.” “I am firing the Attorney General, the head of the NSC, the Chief of the Joint Staff, and my White House counsel. I don’t know what the Attorney General did. It really doesn’t matter. Justice so abused the 1st Amendment I have no choice. NSC and Defense misjudged the potential in Benghazi badly and failed to save American personnel in ongoing danger — I can’t tolerate such bad management. My White House counsel knew of the IRS investigations for weeks without telling me.” He appoints some esteemed former judge of the Tax Court to clean up the IRS. Then the president preempts the Congress by saying that he wants them to reconsider Obamacare taking away any role for the IRS.

President Obama will have his mojo back instantly. Republicans will be flummoxed.

It may come down to that, but I don’t think it will happen. For instance, Obama had two perfect moments to fire Eric Holder already — one when Operation Fast and Furious surfaced, and the other at the second-term transition. Why is Holder still there? The secret is probably within the claim of executive privilege on Fast and Furious, which is that Obama is probably not as ill-informed on any of these scandals as the White House would lead people to believe. As any CEO knows, once people get fired and cut loose (in this case politically as well as financially), they have no particular reason to remain loyal, or to remain quiet. And even in those situations where Obama has the chance to clean house, who’s he proposing to hire? Benghazi-linked Susan Rice for NSA and Victoria Nuland for Assistant Secretary of State.

Also, Obama won’t back down on IRS enforcement of the ObamaCare mandate, because there is no other way to enforce it — not practically, and not legally either, thanks to the Supreme Court. The only reason the individual mandate survived was because John Roberts and the four liberal justices saw it as a tax. If the IRS doesn’t enforce it, is it still a tax? Or does the White House have to create a new Office of Mandate Enforcement to impose it in parallel? The point isn’t so much that a politically-corrupt IRS will be the agency to enforce the mandate, but that the IRS scandal shows that any bureaucracy with enough power and ambiguous oversight and leadership can become corrupt and partisan.

At this point, it’s too late to solve the problem by firing everyone. The corruption and scandal have already occurred. Firing people will be a consequence, but that’s not going to give Obama his mojo back — it will only put him on the defensive, and give a few people more incentive to talk about what happened from the inside. And at least in regard to firing White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, it’s going to be difficult to sell the firing of the most well-informed person in the West Wing as a mojo-reclaiming move.

Blowback

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Comments

At this point, it’s too late to solve the problem by firing everyone. The corruption and scandal have already occurred.

Presuming he really had no idea what was going on. Big presumtion there. It appears more likely at this point, it’s too late to make this go away by firing everyone.
To abruptly separate himself from his hench men uh staff and appointees, if in fact he’s in it so deep he has to keep his nose that high to prevent drowning in it, could be extemely problematic. LBJ said of such things, “I’d rather have someone in the tent p*ssing out than outside the tent p*ssing in.”

Every CEO is a politician. Not every politician is a CEO. The current set of messes that President Obama faces makes the point. They are as much management failures as they are political/legal nightmares. There is a price for having no market-facing executive experience. Indeed, Mr. Obama’s first cabinet had almost no private sector management experience.

How many CEO’s throw their employees under the bus. How many CEO’s grow their organizations for the expressed purpose of divesting themselves of all culpability for bad business outcomes? I’m sure that there are some, because there are some bad CEO’s. However, a person is not a CEO for long who is allowed to get away with such a horrific string of management failures.

At this point, it’s too late to solve the problem by firing everyone. The corruption and scandal have already occurred. Firing people will be a consequence, but that’s not going to give Obama his mojo back — it will only put him on the defensive, and give a few people more incentive to talk about what happened from the inside.

It’s always difficult to punish the people who know the truth about the lies one has told. Loyalty among scoundrels has a limit.

Punishment needs to be meted out to those who did wrong, with firing being the first step. If there are criminal charges to be made, add them, too. Plus, of those that are lawyers, complain to the ethics board of the Bar Association.

These scandals cannot be tolerated, nor should they by a free people. Any future Administration, regardless of Party, needs to know it won’t get away with such shenanigans, either.

When your goal is to fundamentally transform the country, you don’t fire people, especially the people who are helping you do it, you ride out the wave and let the chips fall where they may.

Obama is not running for president again so he has little fear of anyone forcing him to do anything. Impeachment? 2 words on what will stop that, President Biden. So the biggest impediment to this president is a strong legislative branch and, as long as we have divided government and the inept John Boehner as Speaker of the House, that’s highly unlikely.

Finally, there is our illustrious free press, who could help get things accomplished. However, once the AP thing is settled, I expect them to go back to being Pravda, Izvestia and Tass.

He is obviously behind the scandals we know about (and have you wondered about all the things we don’t know about?) — AP, Benghazi, IRS, Fox News, etc. If he wasn’t then he’d be firing people in all these cases for their lawlessness and for not informing him.

But he obviously did know about and approve the illegal actions, and he knows that if he fired them that they might not be silent about his roles.

Having said that, the problem still isn’t just Obama. It is government that is too big. We need to make the issues about simplifying tax laws, reducing the power of the IRS, etc.

Obama is not running for president again so he has little fear of anyone forcing him to do anything. Impeachment? 2 words on what will stop that, President Biden. So the biggest impediment to this president is a strong legislative branch and, as long as we have divided government and the inept John Boehner as Speaker of the House, that’s highly unlikely.

Finally, there is our illustrious free press, who could help get things accomplished. However, once the AP thing is settled, I expect them to go back to being Pravda, Izvestia and Tass.

bflat879 on May 25, 2013 at 10:34 AM

Compared to someone who hates the USA, I would welcome a president Biden for two or three years. The damage he would do by ineptitude would pale in comparison to the damage being done and on purpose by the current president .

In most cases in the economy, the president owns it. Good or bad, it’s his. He gets the credit when it’s great; he gets the blame when it’s not. Obama has managed to pull off this detachment in a very (to get down to brass tacks), very easy way. He is constantly campaigning. His campaign never ends. He’s presidency is not one of governance. In fact, in one of these AP stories today there’s even a reference to the fact. Obama’s even quoted as saying, “Maybe it’s time for me to start governing.”

I mean, he’s admitting what’s going on here. He has purposely structured his presidency so that it doesn’t appear that he’s governing. He is not the executive in charge and responsible for what’s happening. All of this that’s happening is happening despite him. He has managed to create in the minds of low-information voters that elected him that he wants lower deficits, that he wants greater job creation, that he wants economic growth, that he wants all the things that aren’t happening.

The truth is, he’s getting everything he wants. The truth is, he is marching through this country like a hot knife through butter. His agenda, he’s putting notches in his belt every month. Stimulus, Obamacare, tax increases, blowing up the Bush tax rates, whatever the agenda item is. The only major thing that he wanted that he hasn’t got is Card Check, and maybe some environmental stuff. But for the most part…http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/16/obama_s_detachment_is_political_genius

Basically Rush says that Obama knows what’s happening–he just wants to appear as if he doesn’t know, and that he’s working hard behind the scenes to get at the bottom of it all.

In 2008 we had someone running on the GOP ticket as VP who was far MORE qualified than Obama to run the U.S.:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjGhy8LVwAo
I’ve been wondering more and more lately if one of the reasons that person didn’t run in 2012 had a lot to do with some of the IRS scandals coming down the pike right now. What if some of the big money donors were afraid that if they gave to that campaign, they’d be audited, or worse? We may never know.

Compared to someone who hates the USA, I would welcome a president Biden for two or three years. The damage he would do by ineptitude would pale in comparison to the damage being done and on purpose by the current president .

The words that will prevent this though are, “first black president”

AZfederalist on May 25, 2013 at 10:44 AM

Yeah, I don’t get the whole “fear the Biden!” thing. Someone may have to explain it to me. I’ve always thought as Biden as a bloviated buffoon, but I’m not quite sure–besides being liberal–why, especially if we got a Republican Senate and kept the House–we’d have to fear him.

I bet he hates the founders with a seething white (not pun intended) passion.

Cindy Munford on May 25, 2013 at 10:59 AM

Of course he does! A Kenyan father who held anti-colonial beliefs would certainly have imparted those views on his children.

Later, Obama got involved with hard-core socialists and obviously has long been a recipient of Affirmative Action programs. His twenty year relationship with Wright is another factor; there’s no way Obama can have been with Wright for that long and not been influenced or at least in agreement.

Our POTUS works from the lawyer/professional student template. You know, like a trial. Lawyers rarely or flat out don’t fire staff.

The speeches — addressing the jury.

The attacks on Mitt — witness impeachment.

The tender treatment of donors — tending to clients.

His problem? He doesn’t accommodate or negotiate, either. He keeps thinking of it as a zero sum game in a courtroom or school debate or report. Witness his great rapport with everyone outside of his troops. /sarc

There are ways to wiggle out of this (I’m not going to say) but if his “Gitmo” speech of the other day is an example, we are in for a long siege and a lot of frowning faces. His own people may be his undoing, though, like the President Johnson cite above.

We knew that the guy didn’t have enough experience to run the country, and we didn’t vote for him. Those that did have done him a huge disservice by doing so because they set him up to fail. And that is exactly what he’s done. He’s failed in more ways than any other president has failed, and he’s done it without even knowing what’s happened around him or why? Really? What on earth is the man going to do when he gets out of the WH? Retire on our dime and practice his golf game I guess, maybe have someone write another book for him. I don’t even know that he’ll draw crowds for speaking, he’s said the same things over and over so many times, who would listen? That’s what happens when you shove someone in the WH who isn’t even remotely ready to be there.

Compared to someone who hates the USA, I would welcome a president Biden for two or three years. The damage he would do by ineptitude would pale in comparison to the damage being done and on purpose by the current president .

The words that will prevent this though are, “first black president”

AZfederalist on May 25, 2013 at 10:44 AM

Yeah, I don’t get the whole “fear the Biden!” thing. Someone may have to explain it to me. I’ve always thought as Biden as a bloviated buffoon, but I’m not quite sure–besides being liberal–why, especially if we got a Republican Senate and kept the House–we’d have to fear him.

theotherone on May 25, 2013 at 11:01 AM

Agreed. The notion that Biden shields the REB from impeachment seems to be partly generated by the left. Joe is no more or less incompetent or intelligent than the REB, but he doesn’t have the malice and hatred of America that the REB has.

As to impeachment itself, we have to decide if it’s better to impeach and take the hit from the LIV’s and Independents, or leave him in office, broken and powerless.

He stole the presidential election of 2012. That should be the first line in the history books.

The President is not informed by his advisors only if he does not want to be informed. He either directs them not to inform him, (and therefore can’t fire them)or he directs them to keep him fully informed and fires those who don’t. The direction President Obama gave is obvious.

Barry’s just there as the frontman to sign off on and sell the agenda, while he focuses on the perks and power of office, unrestricted access to the public treasury and the fawning celebrity status he holds.

I bet he hates the founders with a seething white (not pun intended) passion.

Cindy Munford on May 25, 2013 at 10:59 AM

Yes, probably.

The Founders owned slaves and indentured servants and that did in their reputation with the denizens of his haunts.

But he isn’t a total Marxist, either.

His work as a community organizer must have been a nightmare for him. He has done so little for the violence victims in Chicago or the hard core poor that I have had blacks comparing him unfavorably with…President Bush!

He does have the Ancient Eight faculty hatred of the Wall Street and business rich which is really like a family jealousy and therefore really vicious.

Obama will keep Holder, appoint Lerner, appoint Rice and all of this will be a distant memory by 4th of July. He has never been accountable for anything, and never will. If he delays long enough, we forget.

Fast and who the what now? Wasn’t that that thing where the NRA sold guns to Mexico or something?

He has instigated all this using overt people (Holder) and covert people (Jarrett) within his cabinet. He knows the Repubs are wesk and won’t stop him. That is why he doubles down on his arrogance. Holder won’t be fired because he knows where the bodies are buried. He promotes those involved in the IRS debacle for the same reason. Killery has run to ground. The average Dem voter is so ill informed that it would take the POTUS standing at the podium saying that he knew about everything before they would blame him. Even then about 25% would still blame rhe Repubs. At this point all we can do is keep up the pressure. There will be more coming out about this administration, it is inevitable. This is the rottenest bunch of criminals ever to govdrn the US.

They do occasional sniping on threads like this. Most of the ones where they’ll linger are those where they can cause an argument or just be plain disruptive and annoying. Threads like this, where they can’t refute the wrongdoings of their precious Obama, are the kind they ignore. Their defenses get shot down all too easily, and they can’t refute our side of the debate.

bho has lowered the office of president so much with his crooked illegal doings, every president(d-r) to follow will think they can get away with what he has been able to get away with? NO ONE has stopped bho, and those who want to get the bhopress to slam them on the ‘race’ issue.

It is too bad American’s first black president is bho, he has done more damage for race relations than most anyone has, IMO! And don’t call me racist for making my point!
L

I think you’re correct. Impeaching the first black president would be the end of the GOP.

Curtiss on May 25, 2013 at 11:05 AM

Biden would be an improvement. But Impeachment would have such long lasting and unpredictable results. Unless the people clearly clearly want to see him impeached, which means tons and tons of unrefuteable evidence… it is not a good idea at all.

Obama is as much myth, as he is real. And the myth will out live this administration. I want to hear Obama resign, every speech I hope to hear those words. The truth is, that is not going to happen.

The best we can do is force him to hole up in the Whitehouse and be the ceremonial President the man Obama wants to be, and cut off the power of his cronies.

And bide our time to the next election.

We blew our opportunity when so many failed to understand that attacking Romney was costing us our Constitution.

I am actually hopeful more now than I have been since Obama took office.

This AP/Rosen thing may make the media rethink what they have wrought, and realize it is really possible to lose our birthright.

Holder’s not leaving. The dem defensive position is that these are not real scandals. They are only Republican talking points. If anyone gets fired the first question would be why? If there was no scandal there couldn’t have been a reason to fire anyone.

The next, yet to be revealed scandals are WH policy. Nobody gets fired.

. . . except maybe, eventually those facing jail time.

A sick thing about all this, cultic loyalty to lefty liberal/socialism motivated believers to act on mere verbal direction. Signed directives were not required or requested. Few will be found except at lower levels of the government bureaucracy.

Actually, phosgene was used in World War One, not WW2, and it’s not a nerve agent. It’s a sternutator, or lung injurant, that does damage by preventing the alveoli from processing O2 out of the air;

Phosgene is an insidious poison as the odor may not be noticed and symptoms may be slow to appear. The odor detection threshold for phosgene is 0.4 ppm, four times the threshold limit value. Its high toxicity arises from the action of the phosgene on the proteins in the pulmonary alveoli, the site of gas exchange: their damage disrupts the blood-air barrier, causing suffocation. It reacts with the amines of the proteins, causing crosslinking by formation of urea-like linkages, in accord with the reactions discussed above. Phosgene detection badges are worn by those at risk of exposure.

Sodium bicarbonate may be used to neutralise liquid spills of phosgene. Gaseous spills may be mitigated with ammonia.

A sick thing about all this, cultic loyalty to lefty liberal/socialism motivated believers to act on mere verbal direction. Signed directives were not required or requested. Few will be found except at lower levels of the government bureaucracy.

exdeadhead on May 25, 2013 at 1:35 PM

Today we see but the tip of the heap of garbage that is the extent of the rotting Leftwing culture and cultural “ideals” — saturated throughout government as also public education, their reproductive mechanism to produce more of them.

The IRS mess as also State and Justice are revealing the extent of the bad effects the Left’s cultural “norms” have disaffected our form of government, changing it from within from our Republic to Communist/Socialist.

…and what I see at present is that all the bad experiences of feeling harassed, despised, targeted “irrationally” or so it appeared then, during the last two elections was not at all irrational or happenstance or due to a few troubled personalities online, it was a real act of cultural warfare by the Left upon Americans.

Barack Obama knew nothing of all them, at least according to the White House’s own defenses.

It is INCONCEIVABLE that Obama knew nothing or even knew some vagaries about this, especially after looking back over even a bit of the history of behaviors by WH Counsel Bob Bauer, his wife Anita Dunn (former WH Communications Director who conveniently still has an office in the Obama WH — remember her infamous praising of “Mao Tse-Tsung” and her wild, ugly tongue display in that speech)…

David Axelrod’s penchant is ordering (“telling them what to write and do”) media around and how convenient that is to political players Bauer and Dunn.

These people are instrumental to Barack Obama’s very political breath, as is Valerie Jarrett. NO WAY all of these ugly and corrupt (and corrupting) policies and plans were put into place without any of these involved or without any of these having knowledge of the things.

To believe Obama “knew nothing” about any/all of that, planning and implementation, is to believe he’s tethered in an outhouse on the WH property and is fed a bone now and then of typed copy to read from a teleprompter. Which, of course, is not the case.

The White House insists President Obama is “outraged” by the “inappropriate” targeting and harassment of conservative groups. If true, it’s a remarkable turnaround for a man who helped pioneer those tactics.

On Aug. 21, 2008, the conservative American Issues Project ran an ad highlighting ties between candidate Obama and Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign and supporters were furious, and they pressured TV stations to pull the ad—a common-enough tactic in such ad spats.

What came next was not common. Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign (and later general counsel for the White House), on the same day wrote to the criminal division of the Justice Department, demanding an investigation into AIP, “its officers and directors,” and its “anonymous donors.” Mr. Bauer claimed that the nonprofit, as a 501(c)(4), was committing a “knowing and willful violation” of election law, and wanted “action to enforce against criminal violations.”

AIP gave Justice a full explanation as to why it was not in violation. It said that it operated exactly as liberal groups like Naral Pro-Choice did. It noted that it had disclosed its donor, Texas businessman Harold Simmons. Mr. Bauer’s response was a second letter to Justice calling for the prosecution of Mr. Simmons. He sent a third letter on Sept. 8, again smearing the “sham” AIP’s “illegal electoral purpose.”

Also on Sept. 8, Mr. Bauer complained to the Federal Election Commission about AIP and Mr. Simmons. He demanded that AIP turn over certain tax documents to his campaign (his right under IRS law), then sent a letter to AIP further hounding it for confidential information (to which he had no legal right).

The Bauer onslaught was a big part of a new liberal strategy to thwart the rise of conservative groups. In early August 2008, the New York Times trumpeted the creation of a left-wing group (a 501(c)4) called Accountable America. Founded by Obama supporter and liberal activist Tom Mattzie, the group—as the story explained—would start by sending “warning” letters to 10,000 GOP donors, “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” The letters would alert “right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.” As Mr. Mattzie told Mother Jones: “We’re going to put them at risk.”

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Associated Press

President Obama with Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Mona Sutphen and White House Counsel Bob Bauer.

The Bauer letters were the Obama campaign’s high-profile contribution to this effort—though earlier, in the spring of 2008, Mr. Bauer filed a complaint with the FEC against the American Leadership Project, a group backing Hillary Clinton in the primary. “There’s going to be a reckoning here,” he had warned publicly. “It’s going to be rough—it’s going to be rough on the officers, it’s going to be rough on the employees, it’s going to be rough on the donors. . . Whether it’s at the FEC or in a broader criminal inquiry, those donors will be asked questions.”

Obama is not running for president again so he has little fear of anyone forcing him to do anything. Impeachment? 2 words on what will stop that, President Biden. So the biggest impediment to this president is a strong legislative branch and, as long as we have divided government and the inept John Boehner as Speaker of the House, that’s highly unlikely.

Finally, there is our illustrious free press, who could help get things accomplished. However, once the AP thing is settled, I expect them to go back to being Pravda, Izvestia and Tass.

bflat879 on May 25, 2013 at 10:34 AM

Compared to someone who hates the USA, I would welcome a president Biden for two or three years. The damage he would do by ineptitude would pale in comparison to the damage being done and on purpose by the current president .

The words that will prevent this though are, “first black president”

AZfederalist on May 25, 2013 at 10:44 AM

This is assuming Obama is acting as president and not Valerie Jarrett.